Kent Bush: My 'Field of Dreams' no match for progress

Tuesday

Jun 23, 2009 at 12:01 AMJun 23, 2009 at 11:16 PM

I could still feel it almost 30 years later. I stood in the southbound lane of what had become James P. Cowan Drive in Chickasha, Okla., - just inside the right field foul pole, where my first "real" home run had landed. I was 10 years old playing in a 12 and under league.

Kent Bush

I could still feel it almost 30 years later.

I stood in the southbound lane of what had become James P. Cowan Drive in Chickasha, Okla., - just inside the right field foul pole, where my first "real" home run had landed.

I was 10 years old playing in a 12 and under league.

That high fastball sailed when I hit it. I can still see that ball bounce in the street. I still remember the breathless excitement that carried me on wings of euphoria around the bases.

Just a few weeks ago on a visit to Oklahoma, I took my son to the t-ball field where I had started in the game. It was overgrown now. Life had taken a similar toll on that field that it has on me. It was older, damaged, and definitely not in the shape it used to be.

After we played for a little while, I showed my son where that first home run had landed. I regaled him with many stories of home runs that followed. He loves a good story, and I loved telling them.

But the final chapter has been written on the history of those fields that helped inspire young baseball players in my hometown for more than 50 years.

The city had recently invested millions of dollars into one of the most stunning facilities in the region. Dozens of baseball and softball fields, flanked by soccer and football facilities with all the modern conveniences replaced my Field of Dreams.

But now I know the answer to Dr. Archibald "Moonlight" Graham's question, "Is there enough magic out there in the moonlight to make this dream come true?"

Not now.

Those fields were razed -- bare dirt stands where blood, sweat and tears had fertilized some of the nicest playing surfaces I ever encountered.

After my playing days were over, I took a friend up on an offer to coach a t-ball team. A decade later, we stopped coaching. In those 10 years, we had helped raise funds and lent enough elbow grease to refine several of those diamonds.

I'll never forget the spring we tore down the old, dilapidated fence and used a box blade to shave the rutted infield flat.

We installed and pampered that new sod to get as close to perfect as we knew how. As the sod took hold we replaced the fence with a metal fence. We dug post holes, welded iron braces and screwed the corrugated metal in place. It was a project that required most evenings and every weekend for about three months. But when the project was completed, my friend sat in his chair in the outfield with a beverage and I had my grape slush and we just sat there with the lights on, wondering what the kids and fans would think of our masterpiece.

Every baseball field is beautiful in its own way. This one was pristine. It was so good, in fact, that after a tragic accident claimed a man's life, his wife asked if she could sprinkle his ashes on the field after a memorial ceremony where mourners sat on the bleachers and remembered their dear friend in a manner he would have appreciated.

A few years later, when I returned to help run the league, we undertook a similar task with the smaller field. Once again, we reached for the brass ring.

We wanted it to exceed expectations. It did.

But it was no match for progress.

A recent election cleared the way for the city to sell the land to the school system that had big plans to include the acreage in the high school sports complex.

It is for the best in the long run.

I'm glad I got to revisit that incredible time in my life one more time before it fell victim to the next big thing.

Soon that land won't even show the effects of the years of enjoyment it brought. But the memories won't be erased.

"The strongest thing that baseball has going for it today are its yesterdays," said Lawrence Ritter, who authored several books on baseball.

That is true on many levels.

It is true for everyone from the legends from a bygone era who paved the way for modern professional baseball, to the dads who remember the joy baseball brought them and try to recreate it for their sons today.

Baseball's history is a rich tapestry of memorable moments.

But it isn't merely about the World Series and the legends of the game.

It is equally woven from the recollections of those first home run balls bounding across the street that are burned into memories of little boys who have become men across America. Without those moments, ballparks across America would be empty and America's pastime would truly be a relic of the past.

Those memories are absolute. They are pure. And they are equally important to the history of the game.